Chapter 11
the highs and lows of his career
To say that the movements of the Amal branch of the Ostrogoths throughout the Balkans and Thrace in the decade 471-81 were convoluted would be like describing the ascent of Everest as a challenging hill-walk. For we’re dealing with a tangled web of marches and counter-marches, double-dealing, promises made and broken, treaties signed then ignored, shifting alliances, negotiations running into the sand, etc., involving the relationship between, on the one hand, Thiudimer and then his son Theoderic and, on the other, Leo then Zeno, with the manoeuvrings of Strabo thrown in to muddy the water. To attempt a fictional version of all this without some radical abridgement would stretch the patience of most readers beyond snapping-point. So, following the example of Howard Fast in his novel Spartacus, I’ve gone in for a good deal of pruning and telescoping. For example, the confrontation between the two Theoderics at Mount Sondis in 478, and Thiudimund’s abandoning of his wagons near Epidamnus in 479, I’ve presented as two connected incidents in a single event. Also, I’ve moved Theoderic’s route across the Balkan Mountains slightly to the west: from Marcianople (Mt Sondis) to Novae (Shipka Pass) as the latter feature makes an appropriately dramatic setting for the face-off between the two rivals.
the last Western Emperor
So ended — with a whimper rather than a bang — five hundred years of empire (and, before that, five hundred years of the Roman Republic). The orthodoxy among some historians is that the collapse of the West was an organic process rather than an event, the date of its official end, 476, simply a marker for something that had in fact been going on for a considerable time. If, however, we put the date of the fall of the West back a few years, from 476 to 468, it can be seen as a single catastrophic event; before 468, the West was still salvageable after that date, its collapse was inevitable and swift (see Notes for the Prologue).
facing each other across a river
This time-honoured tradition — with its inherent sense of drama and occasion — held a special appeal for the Goths, for whom it seems to have been a favoured way of staging ‘summit meetings’. Other shame-and-honour societies have exhibited a similar penchant for dramatic panache when holding grand assemblies — Native American ‘pow-wows’ or Highland clan gatherings, for example.
Chapter 12
a Hun great horse and a chunky Parthian
Contrary to popular belief, Hun horses were not shaggy little ponies but huge, ill-conformed brutes, inferior perhaps in intelligence and speed to the smaller north African and Arab strains, but powerful and capable of great endurance. The Parthian horse — chunky and solid, large of cheek and muzzle, with strongly arched neck and rounded haunches — was a good all-round war-horse and the favourite breed of stablemasters for the Roman cavalry. This was perhaps more for aesthetic than practical reasons; for example, it performed less well in hot conditions than the Arab or African. In imagining a Hun-Parthian cross, I’ve combined the size and power of one with the pleasing looks of the other. I thought Sleipnir should be huge — but twenty hands was perhaps stretching things a bit.
going back to Xenophon
Moves first recorded in the Greek commander’s The Art of Horsemanship, and still performed today by the famous Lipizzan stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which are direct descendants of horses bred for the Roman cavalry. Their movements and figures, especially the marvellous ‘airs above the ground’, are derived from those that Greek and Roman cavalry mounts were made to practise.
an unheard-of honour for a barbarian
Well, not quite. Stilicho, the great Vandal general of West Rome’s armies in the reign of Honorius, was made consul for the year 400, in recognition of his services. Despite this, he fell from grace and was put to death for failing to prevent the invasion of Gaul in 406-7 by a huge barbarian confederacy.
Chapter 13
Myrddin, from Cambria in Britain
Myrddin: Welsh personal name which Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinized into Merlinus (Merlin) in tales of Arthurian romance. For obvious reasons I have associated him with Artorius (Arthur); in some legends he is confounded with Ambrosius Aurelianus. Two distinct Merlins emerge from the stories — a fifth-century Welsh Merlin (cited by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini), and a sixth-century Caledonian Merlin. A medieval tradition ascribes to Merlin the gift of prophecy.
I have arrived at my own Rubicon
The stream separating Cisalpine Gaul from Italy proper, which Julius Caesar crossed with his legions, thus precipitating a bloody civil war with Pompey, has become synonymous with a personal moment of truth or point of no return. In Theoderic’s case, this was a consequence of Strabo’s death in 481. The demise of their leader persuaded the Thracian Goths to unite with the Amal Goths under Theoderic. This apparent stroke of luck was in reality a major headache both for the Amal king, and for the Eastern Empire. Instead of two rival Gothic factions effectively neutralizing each other, the Eastern Empire was now faced with a huge, undifferentiated, potentially hostile barbarian mass. Could it afford to tolerate such a volatile presence within its borders? If not, what stance would Theoderic be forced to adopt?
solve the problems of the Noricans
Odovacar’s ‘solution’ (which could be interpreted as an admission of failure) was to resettle the ‘Romans’ (i.e., the populations of towns and their garrisons) of Noricum within Italy. If the majority of country-dwellers had been sheltering in the towns, this would imply a mass emigration of refugees to Italy. It seems unlikely that the entire population of Noricum would have decamped, but what proportion remained behind can’t be ascertained.
it is the red dragon which prevails
The ninth-century Welsh chronicler Nennius alludes to a prophecy in which the red dragon (i.e., the Britons — the ancestors of today’s Welsh) would one day overcome the white dragon (the Anglo-Saxon forebears of most twenty-first-century English people). If there’s any truth in the prophecy, that would imply Welsh independence some time in the future. That is perhaps (some would say unfortunately) unlikely, despite the halfway house of the present Welsh Assembly. Though ethnically and linguistically far more distinct from their English neighbours than are the Scots — that ‘mongrel nation’ — Wales has been politically joined to England for four hundred years longer than Scotland, with the result that habit and conditioning have perhaps done their work too well. (A recent experiment involving DNA sampling showed the Celtic gene, as opposed to the Teutonic, to be much more prevalent among Welsh people than among Scots.) Now, if instead of dragons the prophecy had said lions. .
Chapter 14
a revolutionary new weapons system
I couldn’t resist the temptation to put back the use of Greek fire from the seventh to the late fifth century. Supposedly invented by Callinicus of Heliopolis in 668, its first recorded use was in 674 against the Arabs, then besieging Constantinople. Creating terror perhaps disproportionate to its effect (its nearest modern equivalent is napalm), it was undoubtedly the most effective form of ordnance prior to gunpowder. As with that composition, its precise origins are shrouded in mystery — sufficient licence (excuse?) I thought, to allow me to include it in the story. After all, if James Clavell in his novel Shogun, can equip troops with Elizabethan bayonets. .